Dear AACE Community,

It was wonderful to see so many of you in Las Vegas during our 35th Annual Meeting. The opportunity to reconnect, exchange ideas, and celebrate the strength of our endocrine community was truly memorable. As we reach the midpoint of the year, I am pleased to share some highlights from our meeting and how we’re continuing to advance our mission, elevating the practice of clinical endocrinology to improve global health.

The spirit of collaboration and shared purpose was evident throughout the AACE Annual Meeting. More than 2,700 attendees joined us in Las Vegas, including a record number of over 840 first-time attendees. The energy across the conference was inspiring, from the packed educational sessions to the meaningful conversations taking place in every corner of the meeting.

We featured more than 110 expert speakers, including outstanding presentations from:

• AACE Past President Jeffrey I. Mechanick, MD, FACP, FACN, ECNU, MACE, who delivered our Keynote Address, “Nutrition and Chronic Disease: A Hero’s Journey in AACE.”
• Professor Shashank R. Joshi, MD, DM, FICP, FICN, FRCP, FACE, FACP, MACE, who received the Hossein Gharib, MD, MACP, MACE, Educational Lectureship Award and presented “Impact of Iodine on Thyroid Autoimmunity, Goiter, and Oncogenesis.”
• Linda DiMeglio, MD, MPH, who received the Alan J. Garber, MD, PhD, MACE, Lectureship for The Prevention and Management of The Complications of Diabetes Award and presented “Early-Stage Type 1 Diabetes: Screening, Monitoring, Treatments and Future Directions.”
• Antonio C. Bianco, MD, PhD, who received the Kahn-Tan-Faiman Frontiers in Science and Endocrinology Award, made possible by the generosity of Dr. and Mrs. S. Sethu K. Reddy, and presented “Deconstructing the TSH Feedback Loop: Integrating Deiodinase Biology into the Management of Hypothyroidism.”

The feedback received from attendees was overwhelmingly positive. Attendees shared that the content was clinically relevant, practical, and immediately applicable to patient care, with many leaving inspired by new insights and strategies to bring back to their practices and endocrine care teams. Even now, well past the meeting, I continue to hear how great the meeting was and the plan to attend the 2027 Annual Meeting!

I would like to personally thank our Board of Directors, Board of Trustees, Past Presidents, Annual Meeting Chair, Dr. Rifka Schulman-Rosenbaum, the entire planning committee, speakers, industry partners, volunteers, and AACE staff for their thoughtful planning and contributions to making this year’s Annual Meeting such a success.

Save the date for our 2027 AACE Annual Meeting, taking place in San Diego, California, from Friday, May 14, to Sunday, May 16, at the Marriott Marquis San Diego Marina. Join us for guaranteed sunshine and another memorable opportunity to connect, learn, and collaborate. Registration will open this fall.

An encouraging theme throughout our Annual Meeting was the growing interest in collaboration among regional endocrine societies and organizations. Our Regional Endocrine Organization Reception welcomed more than 105 attendees. We recognized that there is strength in numbers, and through many productive conversations during the Regional Organization leadership meeting, we explored how together we can advance advocacy, meeting engagement, educational outreach, and other shared initiatives. These discussions also reinforced the important role endocrinologists and the endocrine care team play as experts in the diagnosis and management of metabolic disease.

Another important theme discussed throughout the meeting is that there are simply too few endocrinologists to meet the growing needs of patients. Encouraging more medical students and residents to pursue careers in endocrinology is essential to the future of our specialty.

To help address this need, AACE continues to invest in the next generation of endocrine leaders. Thanks to the generosity and vision of several of our Past Presidents—Dr. Susan Samson, Dr. Sethu Reddy, Dr. Sandra Weber, Dr. Daniel Hurley, Dr. Jeffrey Garber, and Dr. Steven Petak—we established the Past Presidents’ Circle Fund Award in 2025. This award supports third- or fourth-year domestic medical students with a strong interest in specializing in endocrinology.

We were also encouraged by the strong presence of medical students, residents, and fellows at this year’s Annual Meeting. AACE remains committed to creating opportunities for early career members to engage with our specialty, connect with mentors, and strengthen their professional development. One important example is the continued decision not to charge abstract submission fees, which provides valuable opportunities to present research, build CVs, and strengthen fellowship applications. We also hosted meet-up sessions for medical students, residents, fellows, and early career members to network, ask questions, and learn more about career pathways in endocrinology. Exciting to see the interest in our subspecialty!

Additional initiatives are being explored, including expanded mentorship opportunities, travel grants for future Annual Meetings, and new approaches to engaging early-career professionals. We welcome continued collaboration as we support the next generation of endocrine leaders.

Beyond the Annual Meeting, AACE’s clinical guidance documents continue to gain increased recognition. This year we launched the AACE Consensus Statement: Algorithm for Management of Adults With Type 2 Diabetes – 2026 Update, which provides visual guidance in graphic algorithms supported by a summary of evidence and clinical considerations to assist health care professionals with the diagnosis and management of adults with prediabetes and type 2 diabetes in shared decision-making to improve care.

We are excited to share that pocket cards of the new AACE Type 2 Diabetes Algorithm have been ordered by practitioners in India. This production reflects the high level of trust placed in AACE as a global leader in evidence-based clinical guidance for endocrine care and highlights the real-world impact our resources continue to have on clinical practice worldwide.

Our Clinical Practice Guidelines Oversight Committee is actively exploring approaches that would allow future clinical guidance documents to be shorter, more focused, and easier to update as new evidence emerges. These efforts reflect our continued commitment to providing clinicians with practical, evidence-based guidance that support patient care, and reflect a response to changes recommended by you, our members, in making guidelines easier to use and incorporate into real world clinical practice.

Also in April, AACE in partnership with Conexiant launched the AACE Endocrine AI digital platform developed for endocrinologists and health care professionals who want to stay informed about the growing role of artificial intelligence in endocrine care. I encourage you to subscribe to this new platform, designed to serve as an ongoing resource for busy professionals who want to keep pace with innovation in areas such as diagnostic support, workflow optimization, data interpretation, patient communication, predictive analytics, and the broader impact of AI on endocrine practice. Readers can expect a steady stream of new content that helps them keep updated on and better understand not only what is changing in AI, but why it matters to their practice and patients.

As we continue exploring advancements in digital health and artificial intelligence, we are also leading important conversations and collaborative efforts around multidisciplinary endocrine care. One recent example was our first AACE Strategic Roundtable on Multidisciplinary Approaches for the Management of MASLD and MASH, which took place May 7-8 in Atlanta, Georgia. Led by Chair and AACE Immediate Past President Scott D. Isaacs, MD, FACE, FACP, the roundtable reinforced a shared commitment to moving beyond discussion toward actionable implementation.

Preliminary themes and potential action items included integrating routine MASLD/MASH detection into clinical care through tools such as automated FIB-4 calculation within the EHR, especially for patients with type 2 diabetes, obesity, elevated liver enzymes, and other metabolic risk factors. Participants also emphasized the need for greater standardization of non-invasive testing, along with expanded multidisciplinary education through multi-society initiatives, one-page clinical pathways, CME, ECHO programs, eConsult support, and integration into medical training. Insights from the roundtable will inform future AACE initiatives and a peer-reviewed proceedings manuscript for Endocrine Practice, AACE’s official journal.

Thank you for your continued partnership and dedication to advancing endocrine care. The passion, expertise, and collaboration across our AACE community inspire me every day, and I look forward to all we will continue to accomplish together throughout the remainder of the year.

Respectfully,

Dace L. Trence, MD, MACE
AACE President